Light works were first created in connection with breathing works. "Breath" was also understood as a form of cognition, which is reflected in the term "inspiration",
i.e. in inhalation. Recognition + inhalation are the most existential processes that are etymologically coupled. Processes of slow dimming or slow focusing, of sharpness and blur correspond to
the cycle of the breath. Hyperventilation as a specific way of cognition can be compared with hypermnesia, up to and including glare. The Janus-headedness of the glare leads from the "overexact
recognition" into the painful "non-knowledge". The antipodes light and darkness touch each other in the comprehension of our limits of knowledge and perception.

After a glare, the visitor may be briefly confused in his orientation and must find his way between glare and enlightenment.

A light beam catches the entering visitor and follows him, enlights him from bottom to top, dazzles him. The viewer might get unsure in his orientation and has to
find his way between blindness and enlightenment.

Hypocrisy is easiest to detect in clergymen, politicians and superiors, in other words in those who should be role models. But they can also be found among many
ordinary people, most likely among others. It is well known that one's own hypocrisy is most difficult to recognize.

The sacred halos could also be used simply as light fittings - why not combine the beautiful with the useful? Perhaps hypocrisy can be better recognized by
brightness?

The Geman title plays with the word 'halo' (= 'Heiligenschein', literally 'holy shine', but with a little twist of the word the meaning is switched to
'Scheinheilig', which is not only 'shine holy', but also 'seeming holy' - according to the double meaning of 'Schein', which is 'shine" as well as 'seeming').

Projection "The Berghof" (postcard Alice Licht) in the open fireplace of the "oldest kitchen in Ulm" (the kitchen is dated 1563).

Exhibition "Relativ Schön", Art Foundation Pro Arte, 2004

The kitchen is small and dark, the entrance low, the floor uneven. If a visitor gets lost in this small room, the small projection flashes up unexpectedly and a
projection sequence takes place, after which the viewer is released into the darkness again. In the projection, the image increasingly disappears into the background, which remains intact. Image
and image background form a unity. There are different projection modes, e.g. darkening and reappearing out of the darkness. Different forms of remembering and forgetting could be associated with
this.

The postcard by Alice Licht of 16 May 1944 to the Blindenwerkstatt (workshop for the blind) Otto Weidt is projected, during transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau
thrown from the train with the inscription on the picture page: "Finder is asked to put card in letter box. Thank you very much", at the address with the note "Strafporto zahlt Empfänger"
(penalty postage paid by recipient). The postcard arrived!

Installation on the roof of the town house on the occasion of the exhibition "Gustav Mesmer -
Ikarus vom Lautertal genannt" (Gustav Mesmer - Ikarus of the Lautertal)

"Luftgeschaeften" (literally "Air business", fictitious transaction)is a
term which is not only known to us, but also in Israel as a Yiddish term in everyday use, e.g. for chatter or as a title for little serious things on which one cannot rely, on nothing serious.
For us it is a dazzling term, related to air number and air booking, something meaningless, where nothing comes out, also with a tendency to trickery and deceit - according to Duden a "faked
business".

With reference to her installation for the Mesmer exhibition, Illi + Galkin's allusions are ambiguous: on the one hand, to the artist's economic insanity and the
breadlessness of art; on the other, the title refers to the artist's often smiling gaze on his seemingly useless, sometimes even foolish activity.

"But "air businesses" could also express the artist's view of the delusional hustle and bustle or being driven by the consumer. That's why Illi + Galkin like to
speak with self-irony about their air business, the reference to Gustav Mesmer's crazy-magical flying world is obvious.

A peculiar flying object floats back and forth on wire ropes above the Münsterplatz in front of the monumental backdrop of the Ulm
cathedral. Two of Galkin's PVC dolls hold a balance on a crossbar, two others turn in a circle in the centre, each throwing a white search light downwards. A red running light runs all around and
forms a wreath of lights that bathes the Richard Mayer white of the town house in red, alarming and rotating light at night.

"... Some of the contributions were of Documenta quality, such as the airy installation by Klaus Illi and Uri Sigal-Galkin. A bizarre armada of floating
plastic dolls around "Nimrod Isch Schalom", the "Friedensmann" with motor powers. Contrasted with "The Shame of Nuremberg", which came to an end 60 years ago on May 8. ..."

These red buds "breathe", fill with air, rise up to their fullness, sink flat to the ground to rise again. Analogous to the process of filling and emptying, the LEDs
dim up and down, creating a reference to photosynthesis.

Quite far up high, a black+white photography can be perceived (the center is 2.66m high up). Strangely, a red dot (may be 2cm in diameter) can be seen. The dot is
“active”, if not aggressive, the light spot consits of small sparkling dots which seem to move – an uncomfortable spot. The red dot is caused by a laser beam.

This
dot "eliminates" or points at a part of the photography which cannot be recognized.It is an image of a gothic church, the church where Marthin Luther was preaching in Wittenberg, Germany. The “invisible” detail is the socalled "Judensau" (jewpig), a
medieval reliev on the church fassade from the 13thcentury. The "jewpig" on the fassade is
approx 6-8m high up and corresponds with the highly mounted photo.The dot “eliminates” this sore-spot, on the other hand it draws attention to it.

The black-and-white-photo shows the subtreranean exgravation site of the medieval jewish quarter at
Neupfarrplatz in the old city of Regensburg. Left the stones of a basement wall can bee seen from outside, on the right the outside of the concrete walls of a nazi ringshelter from 1943 can be
perceived, since the earth has been removed 1995. The jews had been driven out of Regensburg in 1519, their synagogue and their quarter was torn down subsequently. In the middle of the image, at
the end of the blind alley, both buildings meet at a strange interface. It is a view from outside, which remains to us contemporaries.

left: The oval breathing object breathes various small sequences: The oval breathing object breathes various small sequences that show respiratory defects and
abnormalities in different ways.

right: On the medical light box a lung x-ray with a clear shadow on the right lung close to the heart can be seen in front of bright neon light. It is an x-ray from
2002 of the lungs of Holocaust survivor Imre Gönczi, Haifa, who after an injection of pus into the pleura by doctor Hans Münch in Auschwitz barely escaped death, but since then has pain with
every deep breath. Imre Gönczi had the courage to visit his tormentor in his villa on Lake Starberg. He regretted nothing and said: "They would have died anyway".

As the "tree" rises and rises, the lights on the ground dim brighter and brighter until the standing "tree" begins to vibrate in full light. Accordingly, the lights
slowly become darker as they sink, until the object becomes raw in the darkness below. The different modes of climbing and inhaling are reflected analogously in the intensity of the light. A
completely different perspective was offered by looking inside the object through the glass bottom from below (you could lie down on the black mat). From a flat, roomless red in a resting state,
an ever deeper red tunnel view unfolded upwards as you climbed.

"More light" were supposedly Goethes last word on his deathbed. The six small breathing objects ordered according the braille matrix "breath" these two words, while
the neon tube in the background gets lighter accordingly.

The "vision machine" focuses permanently: during an extremely long lens stroke (approx. 35cm) a sharp image is produced in two short moments, a larger and a smaller
one; the slide itself can also be viewed upside down by taking a dazzling look at the beam path towards the light source.

The seated person, who becomes visible for a moment after the long movement from blur to sharpness, is indeed exotic, but was not taken during an adventure holiday
in a distant continent, but in 1844 by É. Thiesson in Paris: he recorded two botocudists from northeastern Brazil in five daguerreotypes - probably the first photographs taken for anthropological
purposes. These photographs inspired the then president of the French Academy of Sciences, Etienne-Renaud-Augustin Serres, to give a lecture to the Academy in 1845, in which he called for a
"photographic museum of the human races" that would serve the representation and comparative study of the human races. The aim was to preserve as much as possible of what was left of humanity's
"childhood and youth". The aim of this photographic museum of human races was to pre-empt the disappearance of primitive peoples in order to preserve at least a museum record as a memento mori
for research.

The specific processuality of the projection involves time and counteracts the artificiality of photography, which usually freezes a tiny section of time. The
projection process reminds every "defective person" of his or her own visual experiences. Sight defect is the most widespread disease of civilization. The deterioration of vision is always also a
process of withdrawal from the world, an attempt to turn away from the outside world, an unconscious refusal to perform. The psychological dimension of this refusal of perception can range from
self-protection to collective amnesia.

The apparatus addresses the limits and inaccuracies of perception, the connections between memory and oblivion. The process of focusing becomes a metaphor for our
limited perception, whether it is not being able to see and know better or no longer wanting to recognize and understand. In his novel "The City of the Blind", the writer Jose Saramago speaks of
a process of becoming blind in general, of the "white evil": we see more and more and recognize less and less.

The exhibition in the Völkerkundemuseum in Freiburg found its equivalent in the simultaneous installation in the local E-Werk / Hallen für Kunst, a relic of
industrial history (electrification at the beginning of the 20th century).

Upon entering the dark entrance room, it was immediately lit up with a double cross projection. The entering visitor was dazzled simultaneously when looking at the
permanently focussing portraits of the last two Tasmanians, see projector above. Left in the glass the reflection of the portrait Trugannini, the actual projection of which was in the back of the
viewer. As they approached or passed, the viewer inevitably came into the picture himself.

The tower gallery of the Hospital-church is blacked out with coverings made by Bettina Bürkle. In it Klaus Illi confronts visitors with the seven unspeakable pieces
of advice given by the reformer Martin Luther to the princes on the treatment of Jews in 1543. Reading the texts presented in the excessively bright light boxes is laborious and painful. The
concluding eighth demand recommends the expulsion of the jews. After the "Therefore, in any case, away with them!" Luthers follows the Shoah. The last light-box shows the entrance of
Auschwitz-Birkenau.

For William Lanney, the last surviving man, a more distinguished fate, in keeping with the history of his race, was preserved. Billy Lanney, facetiously known as
King Billy, grew up at Flinders Island until, at the age of 13, he was removed with the remnant of his countrymen to Oyster Cove. Ultimately he became a sailor and for some years he went whaling.
With the steady decrease in the number of the aborigines the citizens of Hobart began to take an interest in his novel creature. In January 1868, he was introduced to H.R.H. Prince Alfred, at
Hobart Town regatta. He was seldom sober when he had money. He turned ill from a whaling voyage in February 1869, and on March 2 he died in his room at the Dog and Partridge public-house. “The
death of the last male descendant of the Tasmanian aborigines, happening in the chief city of a people who had been the cause of their extirpation was a circumstance invested with more than
common interest.” King Billy, who had been a poor, drunken piece of flotsam, ridiculed by almost all when alive, became, dead, a desirable property. While he lay in the Colonial Hospital at least
two persons determined to have his bones.3 They
claimed to act in the interests of the Royal College of Surgeons and of the Royal Society of Tasmania.

On 6 March 1869, the day of the funeral, about fifty or sixty residents interested in Lanney and determined that he should at least have a fine burying assembled at
the hospital. Rumors were circulating that the body had been mutilated and, to satisfy the mourners, the coffin was opened. When those who wished to do so had seen the body the coffin was closed
and sealed. It was then covered with a black opossum on which were laid some spears and waddies twisted with a Union Jack. Four whalers carried the coffin to the burial ground; it bore a plate
inscribed, “William Lanney died 3 March 1869. Aged 34 years.” The coffin was buried with Anglican rites.

Meanwhile it was reported that, on the preceding night, a surgeon had entered the dead-house where Lanney lay, skinned the head, and removed the scull; the head of a
patient who had died in the hospital on the same day was similarly skinned, and the scull was placed inside Lanney’s scalp and the skin drawn over it. Members of the Royal Society were “greatly
annoyed” at being thus forestalled and, as body-snatching was expected, it was decided that the resurrection men should be left with nothing worth taking: Lanney’s hands and feet were cut off. A
“painful impression” was caused among those at the funeral by these reports and they requested that a watch be kept on the grave that night. Instructions were given to the police, “but in some
way they miscarried.” In the morning Constable Mahony found that the earth had been removed, a scull was lying on the surface, part of the coffin was visible, and the ground was saturated with
blood. It was stated that a trail of blood was found from the grave to a gate opposite the stores to a guano company. A vast amount of public recrimination took place, in the course of which it
was stated that Lanney’s body, taken back to the hospital in a wheel-barrow, had been reduced to “masses of blood and fat all over the floor.” In keeping with the tradition no one was
punished.

The fate of such anatomical relics as remained I have not been able to learn. In reply to a letter, the Director of the Tasmanian Museum informs me, “So far as is
known no portions of the skeleton of William Lanney, the last male aborigine, are in the possession of the Tasmanian Museum or the Royal Society of Tasmania.” The Royal College of Surgeons,
London, has denied possession of the scull; it probably never left Tasmania.

3The death and
burial of Lanney, his resurrection and mutilation, and the proceedings which followed, are described in detail inThe Mercury, of 8 March 1869, and succeeding issues. See alsoAspects in the Life of a Colonial Surgeon: The Honourable W.L. Crowther, F.R.C.S.,
C.M.Z.S, Sometime Premier of Tasmania,inThe Medical Journal of Australia,26 September 1942

right: TRUGANINI

King Billy was gone, but Truganini, the “Beauty of Bruny,” lived on, last of the Bruny Island tribe, last of all the Tasmanians in Van Diemen’s Land.4 Her uncle had been shot by a soldier, her sister stolen
by sealers, her mother stabbed. Her man had his hands cut off in life, and her last compatriot his hands cut off in death. One by one they had all gone, some shot, some brained with musket-butts,
other rotted with drink and disease or victims of stange and horrible clothing. They had been raped, emasulated, flogged, roasted, and staved. They had been badgered from place to place, taken
from their country to an unfamiliar island and brought back to die in the pestiferous ruins of a gaol. The colonists’ lusts had been succeeded by their hatred, and their hatred by their contempt.
The “black crows” had become the “savages” and the savages, the dirty, drunken, flea-ridden blacks.

Truganini, the old woman, had seen it all, her own story the very story of her race. King Billy gone, she was something of a celebrity. Old people in Tasmania even
now will tell of seeing her in the street, a grizzled old woman, a bright kerchief bound about her head. Her last years were comfortable, it seems, but there was a shadow over them – her fear of
the body-snatchers and mutilation after death. Those pseudo-scientists who had shown not the slightest interest in the blacks in life now coveted a good skeleton. They had been cheated of King
Billy but, it was said, they were determined to have Truganini’s bones. No doubt she thought of the old simplicities of Bruny, and of her father grieving over her mother’s death by knife wounds –
“He used to make a fire at night by himself, when my mother would come to him.” No doubt, too, she thought of all the long and sorry years, the deaths of Flinders Island, the horrors of the trial
and executions in far off Port Phillip, but, more and more often, we know, as she neared her end, she thought of Lanney, with his hands and feet cut off and the skull lying in the blood-soaked
earth by the broken coffin. “Don’t let them cut me up,” she begged the doctor as she lay dying. “Bury me behind the mountains.” On 8 May 1876, she died; she was buried at the Cascades, Hobart,
with great precautions against the body-snatchers. Today her bones are strung together in the Tasmanian Museum – no longer on public view, but in a “coffin-like” box in the basement.

4For the
death and burial of Truganini, seeThe Mercury, May 1876. Mr. Thomas Dunbabin, in his article on “Aborigines
of Tasmania” in theAustralian Encyclopaedia, Vol II, p. 540, says, “It is possible that Mrs. Seymour, who
died at Kangaroo Island, South Australia, in 1909 at a great age, was a full-blood Tasmanian; it is said that she was stolen when a child and taken there by sealers.